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Re: The Helper Rant



> This helper versus bare-bone thread comes up every now and then.  I
> cannot really see much advantage on forcing people down that path.

As I expressed earlier in this thread, and I think I did in my
original mail: I am not against debhelper or helper programs. I am
against blindly using the templates.

> User's are not going to thank you for it.  

Well.. some of my applicants said it was a good experiment. One even
stopped using debhelper :)

> Actually it looks for configure and if it finds it it uses that.  The
> dh-make templates actually derive from debhelper examples.

Hmm.. I found the configure target in a few packages which didn't have
configure targets. Probably the templates were copied from another
package's one, which were made by dh_make... So much the worse :|


> This sort of thing shouldn't happen, but really does it matter?  I would
> consider this a minor bug.  OK its not elegant, but does the package
> build?  Yes, it would. Does it introduce bugs? No it doesn't.  
> So it's not the end of the world.

For me, it means that the packager doesn't understand make. If he
would, he would know that removing $(MAKE) from the build-stamp target
would solve his problem.

> > I know that my problems are small, mostly cosmetic things. However, I
> > believe that Debian packages should be done elegantly, even if that
> > means some extra work, even if it means that removing those
> > commented-out debhelper commands, which are not used now, but might
> > be, in some later point (they should be added back then, not left
> > around until such times come).
> This WOULD introduce bugs.  Some debhelper things need to be done in a
> certain order or they don't work, don't work properly.  You're "purism"
> is going to lead to more not less bugs.

If they don't know where to place the command, they should read the
documentation, and/or see a sample. If they don't know it, and can't
look it up, they don't know the tools they're using.

> For what purpose, so people can say "i can make a package without
> debhelper"?  Really! is there any other reason for it?

There is. Knowing the tools debhelper uses below the surface, and
making sure they really do understand what's going on. It would be a
pity to fill Debian with people who only know how to package with
dh_make, and nothing else.

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